


At 40

by ThatPilotGirl



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Non-Linear Narrative, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7644484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatPilotGirl/pseuds/ThatPilotGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The women of the Fast and the Furious series, at 40.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mia

**Author's Note:**

> I OWN NOTHING.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 40, Mia is not quite your average working mom

There are things that Mia knows about herself-really knows, deep down in her bones where aliases and bullets and lies can't penetrate.

She is forty years old and a fifth grade teacher. She has two children, Jack and Sloane, and a husband, Brian. Her husband is a mechanic. She has one sibling by blood, Dom, one by marriage, Letty, and several more in every way that counts. The love that she has for her family is blazing, fierce, and unapologetic. She lives on the outskirts of LA, with her husband, kids, and a spare bedroom that is in use more often than not. She can drive a car at 275mph. (She starts sweating a little around 255, but her hands have never slipped.)

There have not been aliases or bullets or lies for a long time now. Not since she was thirty three years old, pregnant with her daughter, and her husband came home for good. But still, Mia has learned to keep what matters locked within her, just in case.

* * *

"Mommy!" a voice shrieks, as she steps through the door one Friday afternoon in October.

"Hi baby!" Mia smiles, scooping her daughter up. "How was school today?"

"It was fun. We learned about sub-trac-shun."

"Subtraction is for babies," scoffs Jack, a whole year her senior. "We do multiplication tables in third grade."

Sloane sticks out her tongue.

"Did anyone ask Mom how her day at school was?" Brian asks, coming  out of the bathroom.

"It was wonderful" she says stepping forwards to meet him for a kiss as she puts Sloane down. "We've been learning about fractions. How was the shop?"

"Slight hiccup with an engine rebuild, we only had a fraction of the parts we're going to end up needing." he replies with a wink.

Mia rolls her eyes.

"Don't kiss _again_." Jack hollers, and they both laugh.

* * *

The holidays are spent with Dom, Letty, and their daughter Alexa, who come over from the other side of LA and stay from December 23rd to January 2nd. It has become tradition, as has the Skype call she's pretty sure takes up a server all its own. In-person travel is just such a hassle this time of year, so smack in the middle, December 28th, they all wave and smile at each other through the screen. ("Hannukkah was two weeks ago," Giselle mumbles good naturedly.) After they hang  up, the kids splash in the pool while the adults drink Coronas and laugh. They eat bbq for dinner.

That night when the kids are asleep, Brian slips a key to the latest Camaro in with the dishes they are washing while Dom and Letty watch a movie on the couch. Some things, she supposes, never change.

She raises her eyebrows.

"Christmas was three days ago."

"I like to be unpredictable. And don't act like you haven't been eyeing it."

They leave the other couple to babysit and Mia pushes the speedometer up so she can screech through the streets while Brian clings to the overhead handle with a smile that practically glows in the dark. She pulls into a Huntington beach parking lot, and Brian reaches into the car's tiny back seat. He comes up with a bottle of wine and a blanket. They make love under the stars. Mia feels like she is 19 and meeting him, 27 and letting him back in, 33 and he is home for good. 40 and he is here, right here. They are curled together, panting and she is giggling when an officer's voice yells "HEY, what do you kids think you're doing?".

She yanks on his shirt and he pulls up his shorts, they gather everything else as fast as they can and sprint to the car. She is no longer giggling, she is outright belly laughing, and so is he, and it is three days late but when they kiss their kids on the forehead between showering and finally going to bed, it has been the best Christmas of her life.

* * *

With a little help from Tej and Ramsey to get on the list, Mia and Brian's kids go to one of the finest schools in Los Angeles. The cafeteria food is good, the instruction excellent, the tuition mildly absurd. None of that matters to third graders.

"Mom, Chase says we don't really go to Paris for spring break. He says Paris is for grownups. When I told Mrs. Adams, she said for Chase to stop being mean, but I know she doesn't think we go to Paris either."

Mia has met Mrs. Adams several times, at professional conferences and now back-to-school nights. She made a deliberate choice never to work at her kids' school for precisely this reason. Mrs. Adams is the teacher who plays favorites, and Mia's anger levels are fine tuned for drug cartels and yakuza members, not third grade teachers. And it is difficult to explain how a fifth grade teacher and a mechanic afford annual trips to France. Or, for that matter, a top-notch private school and a Porsche Macan. Most of the parents here are investment bankers or entertainment lawyers.

"Family money," Mia says, with an abashed smile she has to clench her teeth to hold.

For the end-of-year family conference Mia shows up in Burberry with Givenchy pumps, and Brian wears a Rolex that costs about as much as Mrs. Adams makes in a year.

"How was Paris?" the woman in question asks.

Mia smiles and shows her the annual picture of the crew in front of the Eiffel tower.

* * *

Dom and Letty are the most frequent occupants of the spare room, followed by law enforcement family members who are in town for a job. Han and Gisele take it for some time every year, vagabonds that they are, and sometimes Suki or Sean will send someone from Miami or Dallas, respectively, ambassadors of sorts. The rest of the family shows up sporadically, but the door is open for whoever needs.

Now and again, a racing scene hopeful will stumble in, freshly arrived from Iowa or Montana or somewhere else in the middle of nowhere, come looking for the legendary Toretto clan, kings of the LA streets.

She feeds them three squares, makes sure they are good to Jack and Sloane, and sends them to the shop with Brian. The ones who they both like, she helps find crash pads and shop jobs, and introduces to Letty and Dom. The ones who they don't she sends home, and if they stay anyways then they don't stay long.

The aliases and bullets and lies may be gone, but racing was there long before any of that, and racing will remain.

* * *

On her forty-first birthday, Mia gets "Happy Birthday" sung to her once in the morning by her class, one in the staff room by her coworkers, and once by her husband and two children.

"Yes," she thinks, as the doorbell rings.

"Yes it is."

She blows out her candles, kisses her husband on the lips and each kid on the cheek, and goes to greet the year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you watch the deleted scene, it seems like being a doctor was Dom's dream for Mia, not her own, so I decided to set her free.  
> When I was writing about Mia's love for her family, I was thinking of Molly Weasley rushing at Bellatrix.  
> Apologies for anything being off with what they're learning in school, it is not my area of expertise.  
> I may or may not have been influenced by this commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS2kZDKU9Lw  
> 


	2. Neela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her mother barely hit 28. Neela's up to 40, fighting for every day of it.

It has become more and more rare over the years, but Neela still meets men who remember her mother, the best trick in Kabukicho.  
"Is there a man I need to talk to about you, little girl?" they would ask her in her teens, 20's, 30's. Always a little girl.  
For a long time, she had nothing to say. When Sean was in town he would move his big, loud, American self in between and say, in that sloppy southern drawl, "yeah, me."  
They usually took a hint, and when they didn't listen to his words, they listened to his cars and fists. It was convenient, and nice to have someone looking out for her who actually meant it.

She never intended to stay in the racing life. Neela did well in school, liked languages especially. She is fluent in Japanese and English, did well in Spanish and French as well. She went to college for international studies, and geot a job with the tourism department of the government as a translator. She couldn't give up the racing though, she had been breathing exhaust fumes for too long and engine grease seemed to linger under her fingernails no matter how hard she scrubbed her hands. She made it her nighttime, weekend, vacation day hobby, told herself she'll give it up eventually, never quite could.

When they were both 25, Sean moved back to the States, to Dallas, taking Twinkie with him.  
"Come with us." Sean had said.  
"You can get a green card easy."  
Neela didn't doubt it. Luke Hobbs had been back to town once or twice, Brian still had friends in the FBI, hell, Kamata could get her the documents quickly if not quite legally.  
"I'm staying." She told him. "Tokyo is home."  
He had protested, of course, and that night Neela called Han and Gisele. They arrived 72 hours later, and Han talked Sean down. Then Gisele scared the hell out of him for good measure.  
"A woman is allowed to make her own choices. Don't you try to control her." Sean quoted as she kissed him goodbye at the airport.  
Han and Giselle stayed in town for another two months after Sean left. Though he had designated her heir to the throne, things didn't really work that way and so she raced every goddamn man in Tokyo, beat them over and over until they believed that she belonged at the top. Only then did Han and Giselle depart, back to their endless wanderings.

Neela takes the title of Queen, Q to childhood friends, family, the occasional protegee that she takes on. Her throne is the cushy seat of her Porsche 911, her desk chair a Nissan 200SX, S15 model. She refuses to rule by fear, welcomes outsiders with open arms, lets herself smile and laugh with Earl and Reiko. She leads lines of newcomers drifting down the mountain from the middle, and after a racer's first time from the top down, they get new tires on the house. The mountain is no longer a sacred place for the elite, she makes it again the place of wonder it was for her as a young girl.

She keeps in touch with everyone. Sean, Twinkie, Han, and Gisele, mostly, but Paris means she's met everyone and they always have a place to crash in Tokyo. With Suki, she develops a close friendship in reality if not geography. She is running the scene down in Miami, Florida, has been since Tej left to join Dom's crew, and is always willing to lend an ear to Neela's frustration. Their leadership styles are different, but they face the same enemies. It is Tej who introduces them during the first annual gathering in Paris. She almost didn't go, didn't feel like she was quite in the family, but Sean had insisted and so there they were. She ends up being glad she did. Mia and Gisele are the big sisters she never got. Tej makes her laugh, and Rome buys her absurdly expensive gifts that she refuses at first but relents on when Gisele whispers "he doesn't know how else to say 'nice to meet you'".

Things are awkward the first time she goes to Paris after Sean leaves, about 8 months difference. He's still a bit hurt, she's a little smug over how well she's been doing, but anxious that it will all fall apart in her absence. Han rolls his eyes about being "Too old for your teenage drama," Neela counters with the fact that they haven't been teenagers in years, Han says "that's the point." They work past it. She visits him in Dallas for the first time when she's 30, he comes back to Tokyo for a few weeks 2 years later, it becomes an annual trip with them trading off cities. They were never going to be forever, but she'll never regret the years they spent pretending. Nowadays, they talk about the attitudes of the kids coming in ("We weren't that bad, were we?"), the specs of the year's new models, who in the family has had a baby or expanded a business. They laugh about their day jobs, she's still at the Department of Tourism, he's somehow ended up a high school guidance counselor, helping kids find what keeps them out of trouble while getting into it himself by night.

There are those who look at the way Neela leads, and mistake her kindness for weakness. They see the fit of her jeans, the silver of her hoops, the wave of her hair, and mistake her femininity for softness. They challenge her in ways big and small. She speeds past them, wins business deals with the ruthlessness she learned listening in on Kamata's business deals as a child. There are upstarts who come in claiming she is too old, demand the throne with all the bravado of youth. She disarms them with offers to join the crew, most are just looking for a place to belong. Those who refuse and try to take power by force find police officers waiting at every starting line they try to form. She's a government worker, after all, must help to maintain order in her city. 

Nowadays, when a man calls her little girl, asks if he needs to talk to someone, she simply says "No."

It is then that they notice the the fire in her eyes, the sharp edges of her smile. The spike of her stilettos. The engine grease at the edges of her perfectly manicured fingernails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I will go to war in a red dress  
> trample your ashes in my high heels."  
> Look for my lipstick on your collar  
> when I lean forwards, not to kiss you  
> but to whisper 'I win.""  
> -Someone on the internet


	3. Gisele

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 40, Gisele is still wandering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, nothing owned and all feedback is welcome

She supposes that by the dictionary definition, she and Han are homeless. They have no space that is theirs, free and clear, no set location to rest their heads. On the other hand, they have plenty of places to go back to, plenty of spots where they are always welcome. The houses near LA, Neela's loft in Tokyo, the apartment in London where Ramsey and Tej are raising twin sons. They have family, so, regardless of what the dictionary says, they have home.

* * *

 

Gisele stretches out across the bed, naked atop the covers, loves the feeling of her muscles stretching, glowing in the morning sunlight.  
"Breakfast is ready" Han's voice calls from the kitchen of their AirBnB in Paris.  
She gets up and pulls on a cream silk robe, then walks out of the bedroom. They kiss, long and slow, and he already tastes like coffee. They drink the stuff black, her first cup, his second, and eat croissants from the bakery downstairs. They trade sections of a local English paper, she muses that one day she'll have to teach him French.  
"Roman gets in this evening." Han comments absentmindedly.  
"mmhmmm."  
"Tomorrow is the bosses, then Tej and Ramsey when the kids are out of class."  
"mmmhmmm."  
"And everyone else by Saturday night."  
She finally looks up from her article on new restaurants opening over the next week. He shrugs a little defensively.  
"We're getting old! I thought I'd give this whole 'keeping track of a schedule' thing a try'"  
She laughs and kisses him over the dishes, then drops the paper to pull him to his feet and back to the bedroom.

* * *

 

They're in Cape Town, staying at one of Rome's places, when her birthday rolls around. The outdoors haven't become any more his thing in the years together, but it is her day so he doesn't say a word when she wants to hike the mountain. They pack all the necessary supplies in sturdy backpacks, gear up, and set off for the top, with her ignoring his pointed sighs in the direction of the cable car. When they get to the summit, she takes pity on him and lays out their picnic while he catches his breath.  
"There." she declares when she is done, and Han's smile sprawls wide across his face.  
"Not quite" he says, and rummages around in his bag until he pulls out a box from her favorite bakery in Tel Aviv, with her favorite kinds of ruggalah inside.  
"Rome picked it up for me." he says, blushing slightly, and she loves that nearly 15 years after Rio, he still surprises her.  
"Also, there are those boots you liked in Paris back at the apartment. Happy birthday."  
"I love you." She replies.

* * *

 

Mia remembers their wedding anniversary far better than they ever do. It really wasn't a big deal, just for the sake of hospital incidents really. Plus, it was helpful in places where people were more socially conservative to be traveling with a spouse and not in sin. Although, Gisele sometimes finds herself musing, those people are plenty scandalized by an Israeli/Korean-American couple no matter what. This year, they get the "congratulations" text on a beach in Costa Rica, where they are staying at what is technically an FBI safe house, because technically, they are laying low after a job for the team that has been set up specifically to manage their team. The red tape gives Gisele a headache any time she even tries to think about it.

Anyways.

Anniversary in Costa Rica.

Han is still asleep next to her, and Gisele decides that she will be romantic. She exits the house, drives into town, and combs the shelves of the local village convenience store until she finds his favorite kind of chips. Her second stop is at the clothing place, for some barely-there lingerie in the same shade of pink as his favorite shirt. Finally, she runs into the auto body shop for some detail paint and stencil paper, since she knows he's been wanting to put some more personal style into the Acura he's been fixing up. When she gets back to the house, she makes pancakes, sneaks into the closet, then wakes him up wearing the shirt unbuttoned over the new lingerie.

"What's the occasion?" he asks.

"Apparently this is our 10th anniversary."

Han pulls her down on top of him.

"I'll thank Mia later."

* * *

"Aunt Gisele and Uncle Han are here!" Brian calls behind him as he lets them in. "Mia should be back in a few, she texted to say she was stuck in traffic."

Any reply they would have made is cut off by the arrival of the kids from their rooms, having come pounding down the stairs of the house. Jack and Sloane both start talking at once.

"You gotta see what Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday-"

"Can't believe you didn't send pictures from Prague-"

"Paint job last, maybe red-"

"Maybe if you do go back to Venice-"

'Maybe if you don't both talk at once..." Brian comments.

"Its fine." Gisele laughs, as Han goes, "I'd love to check out the newest addition to the fleet."

This was gonna be a fun two weeks.

* * *

"Where haven't we been?" Gisele muses absentmindedly towards the end of their stay with the O'Connors.

Nearly 10 straight years of traveling means the list has been growing shorter, but neither of them have ever backed down from a challenge and the only job they have coming up is a quick week in Budapest-something to do with a mid-level arms dealer-that Hobbs will give them more information about when it is time to move in.

Han pulls up Google on the flat screen, types in "places to go in your 40's."

"We've seen Machu Piccu, been to Kyoto, New York, I've climbed the mountains..."

"Wine tasting in Bordeaux." he spies.

"I do like wine."

A bit more internet searching later and they decide to make it a world tour, going off a list of "top 10 wine destinations" they find on some website. Napa isn't too far away, and they can drive up the coast to Oregon and British Columbia from there. A few months to hit the next six destinations on the list,  and they'll hit Bordeaux a little before they're due back in Paris. And if they happen to veer off course a little bit on the way, Gisele knows that they'll always find their way home.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 40's travel list: http://www.trip.me/blog/places-to-travel-in-your-40s/  
> The top 10 wine destinations list: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/viator/top-10-wine-destinations_b_3876855.html  
> And because in my head, all movies take place in the same universe, Han and Gisele TOTALLY stop at the dad from parent trap's vineyard in Napa. I was a little worried that they're not-actiony-enough in this, they are my favorite F&F couple, but I'm surprised at how much I like showing Gisele's softer side.


	4. Sophie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At 40, Sophie isn't where she expected to be, but this is so much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ownership, i do not have

At 35, Sophie Trinh had been pretty well set up. She was a mid-level FBI agent at Bureau headquarters in DC. Nice apartment, respectable car. She had 5 people who reported to her, and her boss didn't mind that she occasionally needed to leave early with a migraine. She may not have had a lot, but she had what she needed and in this day and age, stability was ever harder to come by. And then it all flew out the window when a customs agent, a DSS agent, and a Brazilian-cop-turned-interpol-agent turned up saying they needed a 4th member for their team.

"What's the team for?" she had asked, though the voice in the back of her head declared she already knew.

The DSS agent had just raised an eyebrow, and Sophie sighed.

"Here's the address, 9am sharp on Monday."

"I'll be there," Sophie's voice answered, only half with her permission. It was Friday at 3. She had 56 hours to figure this out.

* * *

"The job would be based in Paris." Sophie began nervously, standing in front of her new team. "Durand is using his chain of successful furniture stores in France to cover up the movement of stolen artifacts from Egypt to all over Europe. Lack of communication due to rising tensions between Europe and the Middle East means that authorities have been having trouble tracking him, and he stays in the public eye as a philanthropist so people will notice a sudden disappearance."

This, Hobbs explained, was how it would work. They would all present cases, then the group would decide how many and which of the Toretto crew to send to the site, if any. No more than 2 cases at once, no one went in without a partner, and the case had to be something requiring the...special touch of the crew.

"We would need Tej and Ramsey to get into Durand's files electronically and Giselle and Han to pose as buyers."

"Dom will be mad he has to sit out." Elena mused.

"Dom should spend more time with his kid and less time being mad he'd getting paid to do nothing." Hobbs had replied, referencing the massive retainer fee given to everyone involved.

Sophie, only ever having met Brian for any length of time and Mia very briefly at the FBI office, kept her mouth shut. There was a pause.

"I'll call Tej," said Monica.

"And I'll dial Giselle," Elena added.

Sophie gave a small sigh of relief.

* * *

To no one's surprise, the plan did not go as intended. Dom showed up just to prove he could, Ramsey discovered she was pregnant three days in, and by the time Durand was handed over to Mr. Nobody, Sophie was sincerely considering going back to a desk in Washington. Exploding laptops, she had decided, were not something she needed in a job. But just as she had started drafting her letter, the phone rang. She sighed as she picked it up, figuring it would be Hobbs with something he had forgotten to say at the debrief the night before. Instead, Elena's voice opened with "what dress size do you wear?", and Giselle's added "and shoes."

"six and seven and a half." she answered, somewhat bewildered.

"meet us downstairs in 10!" squealed a third voice she couldn't place and the line went dead.

Sophie pulled on jeans instead of sweatpants. She ran a brush through her hair and grabbed her stuff, then caught the elevator down to be met by what had to be every woman in the crew. As if reading her thoughts, Mia stepped forwards and Sophie realized her voice had been the last one on the phone.

"Letty can't exist for too long without Dom," Mia explained, earning a punch to the shoulder from said woman. "The kids are on spring break and we figured that they should see Paris, and it kind of snowballed from there. Now come on, we're going shopping before dinner tonight."

Sophie allowed herself to be swept along with the tide of women, first to several shops and then, after they had all made their purchases, into a cafe for lunch. At first, Sophie had remained quiet and nearly choked on her breath mint at the first price tag she saw.

"Girlie, you gotta spend all that new money somewhere." Letty laughed.

Realizing she was right, Sophie actually looked at some stuff at the next store and ended up buying a couple of new things for herself as well as an outfit for the dinner. By the time the whole group had finished getting ready in the apartment that had been acquired for Giselle (and Han, who had been unceremoniously been kicked out,), she felt like she actually belonged. The women trooped downstairs to meet the guys and the kids, and the whole mass of them streamed into a place Dom had rented out for the night.

* * *

5 years later in the now familiar Paris apartment, Sophie pulled on a pale blue dress while Monica fiddled with her hair. Across the room, Neela and Suki were arguing tire preferences and letting their nails dry, with occasional input from Letty. Giselle was doing her makeup in the bathroom mirror, Mia was on the kitchen phone triple checking that the restaurant was booked, and Elena was working on the straps of a fairly ridiculous pair of heels. Ramsey, meanwhile, had found Need for Speed on TV for them to loudly and shamelessly critique.

"You know," Elena observed as the movie ended and they shut out the lights to head to dinner, "If you hadn't suggested that first job in Paris all those years ago, we wouldn't be here."

Sophie mulled that over all week, from her trip to the spa with Neela and Mia, to FBI gossip with Brian, to beating Rome at foosball.

"To famiglia!" Dom toasted at the end of the week, after the annual Eiffel Tower photo they had wrangled some poor unsuspecting tourist into taking.

Sophie looked around, grinning as Brian caught her eye.

She thought about her apartment in DC, now covered in photos instead of bare-walled. She considered the Lexus she drove, custom tune-ups courtesy of Suki visiting when she missed snow. She ruminated on exploding laptops and almost resigning and jet lag and sleepless nights and the way Jack and Sloane and Alexa and Samantha and Andrew and Colin's eyes lit up when they saw her.

"Yeah." she thought, and raised her cup. "To family!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to get the origin of the annual Paris trip in, and I thought having Sophie be the setup would bring her more into the fold. Monica-Elena-Sophie-Hobbs is, in fact, the "team set up to manage their team," that Gisele mentioned. As far as the kids go: Jack and Sloane are Brian and Mia's kids (Jack's name and a daughter are canon), Alexa is Letty and Dom's daughter (OC), Samantha is Hobbs' daughter (canon), and Andrew and Colin are Tej and Ramsey's twins (OCs).


	5. Suki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suki didn't build an empire by being "nice"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ownership = not mine

9 years ago, Tej left Miami to work with Brian. Within a year and a half, Suki had created the five basic rules of the GarageGirl empire. They are as follows:

1\. No lying. If you are asked why you were in Atlanta last night when you were supposed to be racing in Tampa, you damn well better tell the truth. Secrets can be kept from anyone but Suki herself. If you won't tell someone who asks, she will come find out.

2\. No stealing. You don't welch, you pay your dues to the organization. Ask with good reason, and you shall receive. Take without asking, you get nothing. That's not true. You get hurt.

3\. Respect the organization, respect the people. If your mother is sick at home, that takes priority. If your old friend wants you to blow off work to smoke weed, that does not. If you lay an unwanted hand on the woman who does customer service at you shop, or waves the flag at your race, you get a broken pinkie as a warning.

4\. If Suki is not around, you will respect whoever she has left in charge as if they were Suki herself. Failure to do so will result in...unpleasant consequences. Just ask the kid who tried to run a coup when Suki went to Lima a few months ago with some government team. Or the one who tried a few years before that when she was on her annual trip to Paris. Or the kid from New Orleans who figured Miami was so far away, Suki couldn't possible do anything if he tried to make a move.

5\. Suki herself is to be addressed as "Miss." Never "ma'am," or "ma," and certainly not by her first name. Her closest advisors can get away with "Miss Suki," sometimes. She understands that in many places, "ma," is a sign of respect, so she usually lets them get away with a death glare on the first one.

The empire itself is comprised of a network of garages, races, and shops across most of the southeast. Parts of it are legal, parts of it are not, and the entire thing runs like a well oiled machine. Everyone involved, from the customer service people to the racers, has met Suki personally, has been told if they need anything to not hesitate to contact the higher ups. Suki takes care of her people, and she takes care of them well.

Following these five rules will get you a long, happy career. Not following these rules will get you none of the above. It will also blacklist you in an ever growing number of US and international locations.

* * *

Suki is angry. There is a leak in her organization, $3,000 lost over the past 90 days. She had noticed it around the first $700, but double checked and triple checked, hoping to be wrong. By that time, the number was up to $1,200. She questioned every one of her leaders on both sides of the business. She cancelled races, cut people's hours, and visited every single GarageGirl location. Nearly nothing. $2,000 lost. Suki had been, by that point, bordering on furious, and though half of her wanted to just clean house entirely, it wouldn't be worth the time and effort involved. Plus, she's narrowed the search down to Tennessee, so that's something. Instead, Suki calls some friends for backup.

Brian arrives first.

"Whassup Suki." he calls, walking into the garage in Nashville. (Some would say she's foolish for gathering her troops in front of the opposing general's nose. But Suki has never bothered with subtle.)

The newer staff winced, clearly expecting a painful demise for the man who had just strode in, and even the ones who had met Brian before seemed a little nervous. Suki just laughs.

"Whassup boy?" she replies, dragging out the y like they're back in Miami, and then the whole garage winces as an engine roars in.

Tej and Rome step out of the car, and there they are, the Miami four.

"Let's get to WORK!" Rome exclaims, and they all pile into her office.

* * *

"They're absolutely absurd" She sighs on the phone to Neela after they've cut off the leak.

Turns out it was a group effort. Accountant in Gatlinburg, mechanic in Nashville, racer in Knoxville. They communicated using mostly drop boxes, which was why they had been so hard to trace. Thankfully, Tej had managed to get his hands on one of the few burners they had used, Brian had put that FBI knowledge to good use and Rome did...well, whatever he did. Suki really didn't care. It worked. However, that doesn't mean she didn't go almost nuts.

The problem is that all three of them have known her too long to be scared of her like her employees are. Sure, they know not to fuck with her, and a mere eyebrow raise can get them to follow her commands. But that doesn't mean that Tej and Brian don't pull out pictures for Rome of that time she dyed her hair black for 2 months.

"They are." Neela agrees, a million miles away in Tokyo. "But that's why you put them to use. To make it worth it."

Suki laughs. "I suppose so."

"And for this wonderful listening I have done, I require a fee of you sending me those pictures."

Suki groans.

"I'll show you the car I made to match. It looked much better than I did. Black, with pink and green detailing. Gorgeous"

"I'm sure, but I still wanna see the hair too."

* * *

 

Look, Suki knows she walks on a wire. The heads of legitimate businesses call her too young, and the heads of illegitimate ones are either waiting for her to drop dead or trying to make it happen themselves. This evening, she is dealing with the former problem.

"Miss Aioki, we are, as always so impressed by your continued expansion" says another guest, representing a bank. "Though one wonders if it hasn't been a bit...too ambitious? Especially with that incident in Tennessee."

She hates these fundraising balls, always has, but GarageGirl makes a point of contributing to organizations helping girls get into male dominated fields. As the head of the company, Suki is expected to attend, so she sips her whiskey neat and considers her next words carefully.

"Well, profits from the first three locations in North Carolina are exceeding expectations. True, the Tennessee situation wasn't pleasant, but we were able to find the thieves and then used multiple avenues to bring them to justice." Suki answers.

"How is that trial with Congress going?" She continues, "I hear executives like yourself are always questioned very strictly, and there's talk of restructuring a lot of regulations for the whole industry after this latest scandal. Perhaps even recommendations of early retirement for those too close to the whole thing."

Suki doesn't bother to smile as the man goes pale. She sips her whiskey again and entertains herself by figuring out who she would call to get this man an early retirement.  She won't do it of course, but she might as well have some fun at this thing.

"My friend Sophie in the FBI got assigned to the case, and as you may know, the committee will be meeting with Senator Warren to discuss recommendations next week."

The man now has his mouth hanging slightly open, and Suki finishes her whiskey.

She leaves for Paris in the morning, and she'll need another drink if she's going to survive tonight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And the girl in the corner is everyone's woman  
> She could kill you with a wink of her eye"  
> -Ballroom Blitz, Sweet


	6. Ramsey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Binary still works for her...mostly

(0) Meeting Dom's crew was the biggest one of her life. Not a new line of code, or even a new program. It felt like...like how Ada Lovelace must have felt, creating that first ever computer program back in the 1840's. Something so completely new and untested, she didn't even know what to do with it. It felt like Claude Shannon, putting binary into computers, organizing the chaos. It was like Turing cracking the enigma machine, computer science bursting forth from spilled Nazi secrets, the first hacker to turn the world on its head. Dom's crew turned her world on its head, so she trusted in the program that had always worked for her before. She ran. She spent 6 months roaming the world, but all she found were zeroes. So she went back to LA, back to the house on the beach, and started writing something new again.

* * *

 (1) Tej was the first person she saw that day, pacing back and forth and talking on the phone as she pulled up. When she stepped out he looked...there was a word for this. Hurt and sad, maybe a little angry, but hopeful and happy too. Words weren't her thing, but she gave him what she could.

"Hi. I'm back. I'm sorry if I hurt you, or them."

He eyed her thoughtfully, phone forgotten.

"But not for leaving."

"No. I needed...I needed to leave to know I wanted to stay."

"Okay."

Tej looked at her for another moment then, finally, walked towards her, his thumb hanging up the phone as he did. They hugged, under the hot sun in the middle of the Torettos' driveway, and it was far more comfortable than she had expected. When they pulled apart, Tej grinned at her.

"You gotta see this new project I'm working on. I'm trying to use the coding from the weather satellites to..."

But he was cut off by Rome coming out of the house.

"Yo whassup dude, you've been..."

He trailed off and Ramsey was about to joke about never having seen him quiet before when he went "Damn girl, there you are!" loud enough for the whole house to hear and there wasn't much time to say anything besides "Hello," and "Sure, I'll have a Corona."

* * *

(1) Six months later, a little after her 35th birthday, Tej looked over at her while they were upgrading Dom and Letty's security system and asked her if she wanted to get dinner.

* * *

(0) When they had been together for about three years, Ramsey and Tej had a massive fight. The team was finding its feet, she had just given birth, they were looking for a new place to live, and it all came crashing down. It started, she is pretty sure, with him being annoyed that she hadn't taken out the trash. From there, it was all downhill until he was accusing her of not being capable of loving because "believe it or not, people are more complicated than ones and zeroes."

"Maybe some are, but you're sure as hell not." She shrieked, and left.

Andrew and Colin were crying in their room.

Ramsey drove directly to LAX and got on a flight to London. Deplaning at Heathrow, she had nearly cried. She had never described herself as patriotic, never felt that undying loyalty to country that Gisele maintained for Israel even now. But at that moment, in a place where she wasn't the one who sounded different, where there were easily accessible curry chips, where  Big Ben tolled eternal and the London Eye stood watch, she felt a profound sense of home. She found herself a flat fairly quickly, and sent an e-mail to the handlers that she would be working from London for now, had missed her hometown, the team knows.

* * *

 (0) Ramsey wondered if they gave out an award for "Most Terrible New Mother of the Year." 

* * *

(1) It was Elena, of all people, who knocked on her door a week and a half later and took her to lunch.

"Dom is worried." She said. "They all are."

And then she looked at Ramsey in a way that said everything her words didn't about Tej. Ramsey ignored it.

"Do you miss Brazil?" she asked instead.

Elena smiled a little, letting Ramsey know she saw the avoidance, but answered anyways.

"No. And yes. I don't miss learning another one of my department has been paid off, or the constant violence in the favellas. I don't miss the smell of the sewers. But I miss coffee. I miss the weather, I miss Cristo Redentor watching over me. I miss the way the world was at peace when the Verde-Amarela were playing, because for those 90 minutes, we were all on the same side."

Ramsey mulled it over.

"The thing is...I don't want to go back. Maybe its what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder, but London is home. I do want them here with me though. I just...they all have their lives."

Elena sighed deeply.

"Yes, they do. Mia and Brian have the kids in school, and Letty is at 6 months now. But keyboards work anywhere. And Andrew and Colin have citizenship."

Ramsey gave a slightly watery smile.

* * *

(0) She didn't call him.

* * *

(0) She called Rome, because it was almost like calling Tej, but easier. Whenever he took the twins for a day, she smiled at them over skype, and said that Mommy would see them soon. He wasn't thrilled, but the wonderful thing about Rome was that complications were too stressful for him to want to deal with.

* * *

(0) She really, really, almost considered not going to Paris, but she really, really wanted to see her sons. And her partner. And the rest of her family.

* * *

(1) Before she left, she put down a deposit on an apartment big enough for a family of four.

* * *

(1) "I'm sorry I left again." Ramsey says, the instant she sees him.

Suki is staring at her in a way that makes Ramsey fear, slightly, for her life.

Words aren't Tej's thing either, but she can tell he's weighing his next ones carefully.

"You ever watch baseball?" He says.

"No."

"Me neither. But even I know you get three strikes."

She steps towards him, carefully. Suki steps away to talk to Monica.

He says, "I won't let my sons grow up without their mother."

"They won't" she says, without having to think about it. Hesitates.

"Would you be willing to let them grow up in London?"

* * *

 (1) Clapping as her sons blow out the candles on their third birthday, Ramsey leans her head on Tej's shoulder.

"Do you remember what I said after you all rescued me the first time?" she murmurs.

"Fear or loyalty, right?" he confirms.

"I was wrong." She admits. Looking back now, its easy to see.

"You were wrong..." Tej prompts, when she doesn't speak for a while.

"There's a third option."

His eyebrows raise.

"Love."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cristo Redentor is Brazilian Portuguese for "Christ the Redeemer," the Verde-Amarela is a nickname for Brazil's national soccer team.


	7. Monica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people mellow out when they get to be middle aged. Monica isn't one of them.

Monica crumples, gagging, when the bullet hits just to the left of her bellybutton. She mumbles a quick thanks to to universe for the invention of kevlar, then pushes herself back up to her feet and ducks behind a stack of packing crates, taking a moment to catch her breath. She comes back out, firing, and doesn't stop again until she hears "all clear" over the comms. Monica meets the rest of the team outside of the hideout, and they wait in weary silence until one van comes to take the cocaine away to be destroyed and another shows up to give them a ride back to base. The debrief is long and boring, and by the time they are done, Monica's ready for a bottle of wine and a bath.

The minute Monica gets home, she starts running the water, then sheds layers of clothing. The vest stayed at the office, but she's got her jacket, shirt, cami...She stares at her naked reflection in the mirror and analyzes the damage. Giant bruise on her stomach from the impact of the bullet. Blister on her right ankle from her sock sliding down inside her boot during the gunfight. Paper cut on her left hand from the debriefing. Just another day on the job.

* * *

 

It has been a long few weeks and Monica decides she deserves some stress relief. She debates calling Luke, but instead dials Sophie and a couple of women she works with. They decide to do dinner and dancing at a place on K-street.

"Getting a little old for it huh?" One of the customs girls laughs when she's the oldest one at the club.  She is the oldest by a fair amount, at least 10 years on everyone but Sophie. Most of the female agents her age are married with a kid or two.

She flips the girl off while taking her next sip of wine, and when she puts her glass down, she says "Let's see about that," and leads them to the dance floor.

"You sure about this?" Sophie mumbles.

"Of course!" Monica replies.

They all have a good hour or two of dancing, and then some idiot bumps his front against her rear end and follows when she steps away. She turns.

"No, sorry," she says, hoping going the polite route will work.

It doesn't. Instead, he puts his paws around her waist and tries to pull her closer.

"C'mon baby, just one dance. Then we can get out of here."

He's taller than her, even in her heels, which is expected but still frustrating. She puts her thumbs on the inside of his wrists and pushes, forcing him to release his grip.

"I said no," she repeats, backing away a couple steps, then turning to where the others are. Before she can walk very far, his arm locks around her waist.

"And I said we're getting out of here."

His voice is angry and possessive in her ear, and Monica can smell the booze on his breath. She looks down at the limb around her body, then back up at the women. She doesn't know what her face looks like, but the Customs girls look a little bit scared. Sophie, on the other hand, seems amused. Monica pastes on her sweetest, most dangerous smile and turns in the man's arms. He looks shell shocked. She lifts her arms to go around his shoulders, wiggles a little to get herself just enough space.

Then she jams her heel into his foot and delivers a solid right cross.

"BITCH!" He hollers, clutching his bloody nose.

She looks down at him coolly, then turns and walks over to the others. The girls look even more scared, but also impressed. Sophie hands her the remains of her margarita, and then they head out.

When she gets home that night her knuckles are a bit bashed up, but she's certainly had worse injuries.

* * *

Keeping in shape is an essential part of her job, and because of her work with the Toretto crew, Monica makes extra sure to stay fit. With them there's always the chance that you'll be forced to escape the line of fire last minute. Or drive a car onto a boat. Or fight off an unaccounted for guard. Or...well...you're never quite sure what you're going to have to do, but its not something that normal, sane people would get involved with. So, yes, she makes sure to stay very physically fit, which is why she and Luke are currently sparring on the mats at DSS headquarters.

"That all you got?" he taunts, as he ducks a swing. He's got her beat in terms of size and power, but she's quicker and sneakier, and years of high heels mean she almost never looses her balance. Key word, almost.

"Not even close," she grunts, darting under his arm. Unfortunately, this puts her very close to the edge of the mat.

When she puts up her arm to block his next move, she stumbles slightly back, and then trips off the edge of the mat. She is almost able to steady herself, but then she goes down. Her elbows land first, but then her head whacks against the cold floor.

The scrapes on her elbows heal pretty quickly, but the concussion takes her out of the field for two months. She passes the time by seeing how scared she can make Luke with a single glare. A concussion. At 40. Honestly.

* * *

When she finally gets back into the field, Monica feels rusty, a little awkward. Soon enough though, she finds her rhythm again, but just as she's really starting to groove on her new project, a call comes in from a family member (Fuentes, not Toretto,) having an emergency.  Family takes priority, but she still slams the phone down so hard she jams her finger against her desk. She supposes its karma.

* * *

"Fantastic." she thinks, as she dives into the getaway van, feeling her shoulder pop out of its socket.

Brian is on the gas the minute Tej and Ramsey land next to her in the back seat, and Luke peers at them from his perch in the front seat. The hackers, in an ideal world, would been able to get all of the information that they needed while she kept watch and did nothing. However, an unexpected safeguard in the code had triggered an alarm and sent them all running with only some of the information.

"You good?" Ramsey asks, looking at the odd angle of her arm.

"Just need to get it back into place." Monica replies, and lays back. Tej comes around to face her, slowly pulling her arm until it clunks back into place.

"I didn't know you could do that." observes Ramsey, looking at Tej with raised eyebrows.

"Happens sometimes to racers when they slam into something," he responds with a shrug.

Ramsey nodds thoughtfully, then starts.

"By the way, happy birthday." She says to Monica.

"Forgot to get a present, guess I'll just have to make it up to you," Brian snarks, turning for just a sec to look at her.

Luke glares at him and Brian laughs.

"Keep your eyes on the road playboy," she sasses in return, then kicks the back of Luke's seat and turns back to Ramsey.

"Thanks. Though it doesn't seem like much will be changing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can never decide whether to ship Monica/Hobbs or not, but I kinda like it so I sprinkled a little in. Also, I'm convinced that when this team formed, Brian and Monica were kinda awkward with each other, but since then they've kinda just settled into friendly sarcasm.


	8. Elena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes she's a tiny bit bitter, and sometimes she isn't. Either way, she's alright

The first man to leave Elena Oliveira was her father, who walked out on his wife and two children when Elena was only 6 years old.

Her brother came next, when she was 17 and he was 20, shot, caught up in the drug wars. Her _mea_ followed 3 years later, and Elena would always suspect a broken heart.

* * *

The first man to leave Elene Neves was her husband, murdered in the favellas while trying to keep them safe. She was 22 at the time, and joined the force herself less than 6 months later.

* * *

The second man to leave Elena Neves was her first partner, a big, burly man with a tremendous mustache who was on Reyes' rival's payroll and got taken down when Reyes was consolidating power. About that time, Elena decided no more men would be entering her life. It was a decision that stuck for 16 full years until Luke Hobbs decided that he liked her smile, and Dominic Toretto decided she was the right person to share his _tristeza_ with. Probably because he had so much of his own.

* * *

Here's the thing: she meant it when she told Dom to go after his _coracao_ , to try to find his apparently-still-living love. But that didn't mean she didn't chalk another one up on the list of ones who left. It also meant that, instead of staying with the DSS, she sent in an application to Interpol. Hobbs looks at Monica Fuentes the way he never quite looked at her. Their partnership never quite gelled, and for once, she wants to be the one doing the leaving. Hobbs understood, even wrote her a glowing recommendation, and her mouth twists a little when Mia says, "but you'll visit right?".

* * *

A few weeks after she's moved to Washington DC, she gets a call.

_"Alo? Quem e?"_

"Elena? This is Brian. Mia gave me your number. I didn't know how you were settling in, but I wanted to give you Sophie's number. She's an old friend from the FBI, I figured you probably don't know many people out there yet..."

She hesitates just a hair, before replying.

"Sure, what's the number?"

She jots it down while Brian sends on hellos from Mia and Dom and Hobbs.

"How are you doing?" He asks.

"I'm okay." she answers, "Settling in. D.C. is different."

He laughs. "It sure is. Call us if you ever need anything! And if you do see her, tell Sophie we say hello."

She notes the if.

"Will do! Have a great day." She answers, and waits for his "you too" before hanging up.

* * *

 Elena never calls Sophie, but it becomes a moot point a year later.

She wakes up to the phone ringing, her head pounding from a little too much wine. She checks the caller ID. Hobbs.

 _"claro"_ she mumbles to herself before picking up.

"Don't you know it's rude to call a lady the day after her birthday?" she huffs as an opening.

"I thought it would be even ruder to call about work on her birthday," he responds. "Happy four-oh by the way."

"Thanks. Work?"

"I know, I know, you're out." he says, and for the first time since she's met him, Hobbs sounds.... _inseguro. Hesitante._

This, more than anything, has her _curioso_.

 _"O que e isso?"_ (she abstractly realizes she's speaking Portuguese. Whatever. Hobbs is many things, but he's not stupid. His fault anyways for calling before she's had coffee.)

Sure enough, he figures it out.

"We're going to make a team. You, me, Monica, and a woman named Sophie who Brian worked with. To manage...all of them. Just part time. You'll stay with Interpol, sometimes you'll work cases with us too. Annual bonus. Monica's already on board. We'll talk to Sophie tomorrow."

He sounds so sure she'll say yes, she almost wants to say no just for the hell of it. But really, she doesn't want to say no.

* * *

 She likes Ramsey almost instantly and is sorry they weren't able to meet before.

The girl is clearly a little lost in the hectic, headfirst, no-safety-net world of the Torettos, a little hesitant about being a part of something. Elena understands the feeling wholeheartedly. She keeps her distance mostly, knowing that pushing will help nothing, but makes sure to be extra warm and friendly when they do interact so that when Ramsey does need someone, she can be there.

* * *

The first job is in Paris, and it goes fine, but she hesitates as more and more people start showing up. The last thing she wants is to be stuck with her ex-lover and his wife, along with 4 other happy couples, in the city of love.

Sophie is the one to convince her to stay.

"C'mon girl, I can't be the only single lady there," she says, rolling her eyes.

As it turns out, there are 2 other single ladies besides them, plus a couple of single guys, so at the end of the day she supposes its alright. She also gets a chance to talk to Letty for a moment, and though she doesn't know that they'll ever be best friends, she's happy they're figuring out how to be family.

 

* * *

 _"Tenho que estar brincando"_ she mutters under her breath.

Elena is in Portugal, working with the Interpol team there on breaking up a smuggling ring, and while she knew that there was a team Toretto job going on also (something to do with illegal tech sales on the dark web,) she hadn't exactly been expecting to run into them. Except, of course she would.

"Sup Elena!" Letty greeted, stepping out of the Fiat that had just screeched to a halt to cut her off in an alley.

"Hello," she sighed, because, honestly, what else was she supposed to do?

"Sorry to just pop up, but Tej just figured out that the site we're trying to get shut down is run by the same people that you're after."

 _"Perfieto,"_ Elena answered, managing to keep it mostly sincere.

Another car pulled up behind the Fiat, and Rome stuck his head out of the window.

"You all caught up?" he called out to her.

"You didn't give me time, genius" Letty replied before Elena could.

"Well we don't have all day"

Letty flipped Rome off and turned back to Elena.

"So." she said, "Here's the plan."

And as Letty outlines how their ops are going to dovetail, how they're going to help all of those people, together, Elena is glad she finally found people who have stuck around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Portuguese is from Google translate, apologies for anything wrong
> 
> mea-mother  
> tristeza-grief  
> coracao-heart  
> alo? Quem e? -hello, who is this?  
> claro-of course  
> Insegurao, hesitante-unsure, hesitant  
> curioso-curious  
> o que es isso? - what is it?  
> Tenho que estar brincando-gotta be kidding  
> perfieto-perfect


	9. Letty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letty still does it her way.

Here is something Letty remembered fairly quickly: she didn't expect this life. Dom? Yes. Mia? Probably. A whole crew of crazies? Not really. A kid? 100% no.

Despite this, Alexa wasn't an accident. Letty has never believed all that nonsense about biological clocks ticking, but something about seeing Mia and Brian and their kids made her want...something. She loved her huge, crazy family, and was happy to be settling back in to what had been a relatively normal life, pre-robberies and  Brian coming to town and everything going to hell in a hand basket. But one day she was holding Sloane and she realized that she could do this-could have a little monster of her own, without giving up on cars and racing. Mia, after all, was doing both, and managing to have a perfectly normal career as a teacher besides. And Letty knew she was no Mia, but she had Mia as a sister to ask advice from, which was good enough.

* * *

Letty knew Dom liked kids, was good with them, had seen him with Jack, Sloane, and Sammy, and the way he was always careful to make sure the increasingly pregnant Ramsey had a comfortable place to sit. But she still wasn't sure what he would say if she brought up one of their own. In the end, she didn't have to.

"So." he started one day, when they were sitting outside of the rebuilt 1327. "I noticed you've been spending a lot of time with Jack and Sloane lately."

"Mmmmhmmm," she answered, hoping where this was going where she thought it was.

"I was thinking...maybe Ramsey doesn't want to be pregnant alone?"

Letty burst out laughing, because she would be married to a man who would drive a car off a cliff without hesitation, but can't ask if she wants to have a kid with him.

"I think," she says, when she gets her breath back, "Ramsey would love some company."

* * *

 Stopping drinking was never a huge problem, Letty enjoyed a good beer as much as any racer, but it was never a necessary part of an evening. Racing, however, was, and that's what leads to a fair amount of her pregnancy fights with Dom. Letty craves speed and the scent of motor oil the way most women crave chocolate and McDonalds. (Of course, she craves those things too.)

"For the last time Letty, you are not racing tonight. You are four months pregnant."

"For the last time Dom, I am racing tonight. We said I would stop at five!"

"You said that!"

"And you didn't argue!

"Because I thought you would realize how foolish that is on your own!"

Letty sighs, deeply, then pulls out her cell phone to call Mia.

* * *

Alexa's second birthday is on May 29th, the first day of race wars that year. Letty had skipped last time, too tired from late nights taking care of her, but Alexa's been sleeping through the night for over a year now. And besides, Letty's 40th was 2 weeks ago, a shiny new car will be a perfect present to herself.

"You gonna be mama's good luck charm?" Roman croons, holding Alexa surprisingly well. Earlier, he had given her a Hess truck and a Barbie doll.

Alexa smiles. "Yes Unca Wome!"

"I thought I was your good luck charm," Dom grumbles good-naturedly.

* * *

Mia finds Letty one day before the Sunday barbeque, sitting at the kitchen table crying.

"What is it?" she mumbles to Letty's hair, gathering her into her arms.

"Jesse." she sobs.

Despite their best efforts, there are still blanks in her memory. Some of them are like this, gaping sinkholes she falls into in the middle of the everyday, and some smaller, like tears near the seams of one of Alexa's tiny t-shirts, that make her catch her breath for only a minute.

"I knew about him, but I only just remembered." Letty says, once her breathing has evened out.

"I know." Mia answers.

They stay there until Alexa starts crying instead, her howls coming through the baby monitor and announcing the end of her afternoon nap.

* * *

 

Dom, it seemed, was perfectly content to go on jobs for Hobbs and his team, tinker with his own cars, and help to raise Alexa. The job certainly paid enough for them not to need more. Letty, however, found herself restless staying within the block of their house most of the time, especially now that Alexa had started preschool. And since the only thing she really knows is cars, she calls Brian.

"A job?" He asks.

"A job." She answers. "Just a couple hours a day while Alexa is at school. I'm going stir crazy."

Brian hesitates over the phone. "Does Dom know?"

"Not yet. But if he thinks I'm gonna be okay just sitting around doing dishes and learning to knit..."

Brian laughs. "Its a bit of a journey though, isn't it?"

Which is how Letty finds herself doing Brian's online orders from home while making thrice-weekly trips across the city to help out in the garage itself. Dom learns to do the breakfast dishes.

* * *

 Letty's never been the sentimental type, but saving a stranger's life against the wishes of your crime-lord boss is not something to be easily overlooked. And all philosophic droning about her saving Gisele back aside, Letty was the one lying in that stretcher. There's not much she can do, Gisele isn't particularly mushy either, but every year around January 15th or so Letty sends a text saying "thanks."

* * *

The first person to call her "Grammy," is one of the kids that Mia and Brian send over, and he does it while Letty is kissing Alexa for luck before a race.

Dom looks like he want to tear the boy apart, but Letty just rolls her eyes. He really is only a kid, 21 at the most.

"Not even mom?' She teases.

"Everyone calls Mia 'Ma'. he mumbles in response. She wonders if Mia knows.

"Alright." Letty replies as she buckles in. "But just remember that this Grammy can still kick your tailpipes."

She does, winning her race by a full 2 seconds.

"Grammy" eventually gets shortened to "Grams," and Letty makes fun of Mia about being her elder for a while. (Incidentally, Mia did not know she was Ma. She smiles a little when Letty tells her, then says she guesses this means she can make them do more chores.)

Letty doesn't mind her nickname either. Age is just one more way she's still ahead of the pack.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Letty is one of the characters with a more difficult head for me to get into, which is part of why she's last. I also really liked starting with Mia and ending with Letty, since they were the series' original two women. 
> 
> This was the last chapter with an official FAF character, although I am looking forward to the bonus chapter a lot :) (and who knows, maybe after 8 there will be another chapter to add)
> 
> Reviews are loved, and I'll see you all next time!


	10. The road winds on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The daughters

When Sammy is 10 years old, she comes back from school the Friday before spring break to see her father packing a suitcase. This, in and of itself, is not unusual. What is unusual is his big smile as he does, and the fact that her own, smaller piece of luggage has also been pulled out of the closet.

"Daddy, where are we going?" she asks, as she gets herself a snack.

"Its a surprise," he answers, "Now hurry up and pack, Monica is meeting us at the airport."

"Monica huh?" she says, raising a brow like he always does when she gets called to the principal's office.

He glares in a way that would probably be scary if he wasn't her dad. Sammy rolls her eyes like Gisele taught her to do when men are being ridiculous and starts by putting her favorite dress and a big sweatshirt (black, with "O'Connor's Garage Staff" on the back and "Hobbs Jr." on the front corner) into her suitcase.

When Sam is 18 years old, she catches the flight to Paris herself. It made no sense to go back to DC when she could just as easily leave from New York, where she's nearly done with her freshmen year of college. She's majoring in economics at Columbia, but considering switching from general econ to economics-political science.

When the plane touches down at Charles De Gaulle airport, she's surprised to see Mia and Monica waiting to pick her up instead of her father.

"Is dad ok?" are the first words out of her mouth.

"Told you she'd panic." Mia says to Monica, before turning to Sam with a grin.

"Your dad is fine. But considering you're officially an adult now, we figured you should come get ready with us."

Sam looks between the two of them in disbelief. Sure, she always knew that all of the women went somewhere on the first day of the Paris trip, but mostly, she had just kind of gone with it, hanging with her dad and the guys and the other kids.

"If that's ok with you," Monica adds, and Sam realizes she hasn't replied.

She squeezes both women tight, mumbling "that sounds perfect," but as they're getting into Mia's car another vehicle screeches up and her dad climbs out.

He holds out his fist.

"Three for the road?" he asks, his voice as vulnerable as she's ever heard her big, tough Daddy sound.

She hugs him first, then goes through the first bump (over, under, straight on,) before climbing in behind Mia and Monica.

Sam may be all grown up, but her dad will always be the first one she rode shotgun with.

* * *

Sloane doesn't remember ever not going to Paris for spring break, and it ends up having a somewhat outsized influence on her life.

Ramsey started teaching her French via Skype about at soon as she was talking, starting with the designers (Christian Loo-boo-taan not la-boot-in, Jean Paul Goh-teeay not Gaul-tea-air, and she's pretty sure if she ever said give-in-chee not Zhee-vawn-shee, they would never find her body) so it's a no-brainer to take it in school as soon as foreign languages are an option. From there, she tumbles down the rabbit hole of the rest of the Romance Languages: Portuguese from Elena, Spanish from Monica, Italian, and eventually Romanian because its the last one and why not.

She loves learning about each one, their history and culture and personality. She comes across a post on the internet that says "The Romance Languages are those siblings that everyone says look alike, and then they look at each other disgusted like 'ugh, we do not.'" She laughs for a solid 10 minutes before bookmarking it, then asks Neela, Sean, and Gisele to teach her Japanese and Hebrew to mix things up a little.

With all of this under her belt, Sloane ends up skipping college entirely in favor of an alphabet of certification acronyms: TOEFL, TESOL, and the like. She follows in her mother's footsteps as a teacher, Neela's as a translator, Gisele's as a permanent traveler. (And, to be fair, her whole family's as a trouble magnet.) The world is her oyster, and the languages make it open, revealing every pearl. She translates Spanish to French in Guatemala, teaches English in South Korea, meets up with Han and Gisele when they all want to see a newly-opened museum in Kuwait.

Sloane uses a beat up moped to get around most of southeast Asia, (fixed with help from Tej over skype with a crappy wifi hookup,) tries Gisele's favorite Tel Aviv bakery, spends 6 months driving a cab in Montreal, and nearly a year working at a hostel in Rome-the-city. Rome-the-person teaches her to gamble in Macau, so she can always hit up a poker table if she gets too bored of legitimacy. He also teaches her to pick pockets, and though her parents pretend not to know that bit, Mia snags Rome's wallet when they're visiting London one weekend, just to prove a point.

Every year though, she makes sure to make it back to Paris. Sloane looks around at dinner on the first night after spending the day shopping and getting ready with the women, at all of these people who have taught her to speak and drive and live. Her tribe. Her family.

* * *

Alexa is the baby, almost a full year younger than Andrew and Colin, about a decade behind Sam.

When she is 18, she runs away in Paris. Leaves a note on the table of the house where she and her parents are set up, and vanishes onto a eurorail car.

"I love you." The note says, "But I don't want this." Attached is that Year's Eiffel tower photo.

She's not dumb, she knows the rest of her generation is off living their own lives just fine.

Sam is perched in a high rise in New York City running a company that analyzes international business decisions for Fortune 500s.

Jack is one of the lead coordinators of the X-games.

Sloane is on break from an around-the world rock climbing trip with some friends she met teaching English in Chile.

Andrew is calling himself Andy, and is halfway through a bachelor's at UNC Willmington, majoring in Marine Biology, while Colin will have a sociology degree from UC Santa Barbara.

But they're all still held together by the gravity of The Family. Monthly check-ins, Skype conversations, and of course, this. Paris. She wants to resist that pull, to test her mettle against a force of nature. In the back of her head, she knows she can't lose them, knows how many security cameras and tiny microphones there are in the world but she thinks...she thinks maybe if she can get to the farthest corner of the world, then maybe she can be invisible for just a second.

So Alexa runs.

Sometimes, she thinks she sees someone. Gisele and Han, on Los Caracoles Pass. Mia and Sophie, taking a girls trip to Rome. Colin, studying abroad in Hong Kong.

After a year, she settles down. She's not made for constant motion the way Sloane is, running was just to get away. Alexa finds a job as a receptionist at a resort in Northern New Zealand and builds a life, all her papers done properly. She stays at the resort, works her way up until she's the manager. She marries the son of restaurant owner from the nearest town, has four kids, and doesn't touch anything capable of going over 100 for 11 whole years. During that time, she occasionally sends a postcard to The Family. They know that she's got a good job, that she's married, about the kids. They know she's more than ok, they know she still loves them. At the end of each one, she writes "please don't reply," and they have honored her wishes.

Her 30th birthday is full of joy, and at the end of it, Alexa turns to Quinn and says, "I think I'd like to go back to Paris."

He says "Okay."

The open road stretches forth from their door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm a nerd for nextgen anything. 
> 
> Sorry if any of this chapter is super weird, it was mostly self indulgence which doesn't always (read:usually doesn't) translate to decent writing.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who had read and reviewed and kudosed and all. It means a lot :)

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews welcome!


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